Pranksters blamed for Air Force One graffiti hoax

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's been a startling video circulating on the Internet: It supposedly shows someone spraying graffiti on President Bush's jet as it sits parked behind a barbed-wire fence.

It turns out to have been a hoax. No one actually sprayed the slogan “Still Free” on the cowling of Air Force One.

The pranksters behind the grainy, two-minute Web video revealed today how they pulled it off: a rented 747 in California painted to look almost exactly like the presidential jet.

After the video began circulating on the Web on Tuesday, the Air Force checked to see whether the real Air Force One had been vandalized. It wasn't.

Mark Ecko of Mark Ecko Enterprises, a New York fashion company, acknowledged that his company was behind it all. He declined to say how much the stunt cost, saying, “It's not cheap.”